Inaugural Address
August 28, 2004
Anderson Auditorium

Welcome, Faculty and Staff! Please stand if you are now or ever have been Montreat College faculty or staff. Much is entrusted to you. You design and teach and run the classes and programs that form the heart of the Montreat College experience. Your personal example and relationships with our students speak louder than the formal lessons we seek to teach, and will last longer in the hearts and minds of students than any course, book, or assignment. Though you are spread from Charlotte to Cherokee, and though you have varied roles and responsibilities, you form the long-term core of the Montreat College community. Thank you for all you do and for welcoming me as one of your number. Thank you!

Welcome, Members of the Board of Trustees and Board of Visitors! Please stand if you are now, or ever have been a member of these boards. You are responsible for all the college is and will become. You model the selfless service and servant leadership we seek to emulate and to instill in our students. We strive to develop the wisdom you regularly exhibit in your actions and decisions. We appreciate and seek to be worthy of your generosity and to live up to your hopes and expectations. Thank you for all you do for Montreat College! Thank you!

Welcome, Alumni! Please stand if you attended Montreat College. You are our legacy and you hold the keys to our future. We will be known by your example, guided by your recommendations, and supported by your gifts and volunteer efforts. You form the heart of our extended community. We welcome you in the life of the college and in our efforts to define and build its future. Thank you!

Welcome, Mountain Retreat Association! Please stand if you are or have been on the MRA staff or board, or if you have volunteered or donated to advance the MRA mission. We share a proud past. We share a present connection through a common commitment to Christ and to serving within the Presbyterian Church. We are both preparing those who will lead and serve in the Lord’s work of redeeming creation. We are stronger and better when we work together. Let us continue to seek ways to combine our efforts to serve and prepare those who seek the Lord and to serve His children. We are proud to be your partners and welcome you as an important part of our future. Thank you!

Welcome, Montreat Presbyterian Church! Please stand if you are or have been a member, attendee, or staff of Montreat Pres. We too share a proud past and a present as close as a hand and its glove. We too share a commitment to Christ, the Presbyterian Church, and a commitment to serving our students and our broader community. We look forward to walking shoulder to shoulder as we together work to cultivate the spiritual virtues among our students and church members. I believe that we can each deeply enrich the other as we together serve Christ and His children. Thank you!

Welcome, Residents of Montreat, Black Mountain, Charlotte, Asheville, and Cherokee! Please stand if you live or come from one of these fine communities. We are your partners in preparing for the future; we share your interest in enriching the communities of which we are a part, in serving the Lord, and in preparing others to serve. Thank you for welcoming us to your community and for being an important part of ours. Thank you!

Welcome, Donors and Volunteers to Montreat College! Please stand if you have ever donated your time, talents or resources to advance the work of Montreat College. Thank you! We are all here today because of your generosity, and we will thrive tomorrow with your help. Montreat College exists because of your gifts, and it will thrive in the future with your help. You well recognize that we each share responsibility for preparing those who will lead and serve. Education is far too expensive to place the burden solely on students and their families, and far too important for the rest of us to look away with indifference. You understand that each of us has a responsibility for serving God’s children, and that there is no greater leverage than preparing those who will lead and serve. We all benefit from your generosity. Thank you!

Welcome, too, to my friends and family. If you consider yourself a friend—even if a very recent one—and don’t be shy— please stand up for me now. I am here today because of your support. You have made my days worth while, and you keep me going when times are tough. They say that no soldier or sailor really dies for his country—they put their lives on the line for their friends. Just so, I serve with and for you. Thank you for being my friends. Thank you for being here. And thank you for supporting me and working with me in my efforts to serve others through Montreat College.

What a joy it is to be part of the Montreat College community. I am so glad you are all here today. You understand better than most that it takes hundreds, no, thousands of people to make a college great, and that greatness begins with commitment. Today’s ceremony is a visible symbol of my commitment to pour my heart and soul and best efforts to lead Montreat College and to serve with each of you in my new capacity as President. Today, too, you demonstrate by your presence your commitment to serving through Montreat College.

How then do we serve together? How do we come together in our different roles, with our varied gifts, and from our dispersed locations to serve like one, with one great purpose, like minds, and coordinated efforts? How do we demonstrate our common ownership and responsibility for the future?

We can do so by working together to develop a strategic plan that incorporates the ideas, hopes and dreams of all those who love Montreat College. We can build a plan that clearly identifies our values, mission, vision, and goals; that establishes strategies and action plans to make our vision reality, that identifies the resources needed to do so; and that sets priorities among these so that we act in concert and in the understanding that first things must indeed come first.

We can together serve our students, our communities, and many of the Lord’s children through them by making Montreat College stronger, better, and more vibrant than it already is. I must emphasize: We can do this together, together with the guidance of the Lord, and working in community.

Only together can we develop the best vision; only together can we determine the best strategies to reach that vision; only together can we gather the resources to implement our strategies; and only together can we make such striving worth the effort.

We will spend this academic year involved in a very inclusive strategic planning process. I invite each and every one of you to participate, and there will be many ways to participate regardless of how near or far you spend your days. First, I ask you to pray for Montreat College and for our efforts. Next, I ask that you engage at a level appropriate for you. There will be committees of course, but there will also be opportunities to complete surveys, to send comments, to discuss alternatives in groups, and to support the outcome as a volunteer, a donor, or as an informed advocate. Our chief means of communications will be our web site, www.montreat.edu. Please take the time to register on the site so we can keep you informed and ask for your thoughts and suggestions.

Strategic planning is important to the periodic renewing of the college’s sense of itself and its future. It answers the important questions: What do we value? Who will we serve? What will we do? How should we change in the years ahead? And how do we best accomplish our goals? Each generation must confront these questions and commit itself to moving the college forward. We stand here today because of the efforts of our predecessors. They worked hard to build this college and to improve its quality in every area. We can do no less. We owe it to these students, and to those who will soon follow.

In the short time since my arrival here, I have often been asked to share my vision. It is appropriate for people to wonder what plans I may have in mind, but it is important to note that great institutions are not the product of any single leader, however energetic, inspiring, or visionary. Great institutions result from the concerted efforts of dozens, hundreds, even thousands of men and women—with leaders emerging at every level. Montreat College needs each and every one of you.

That said, let me share a few of my thoughts. I believe Montreat College should be:

• Christ-centered. True to Montreat’s history and founding principles; a place for spiritual, educational and physical development and renewal. We should be:
• Committed to nurturing our students within a caring and supportive community.
• Committed to helping our students make sense of the world around them by defining and identifying the world views competing for our hearts and minds.
• Committed to helping our students to know and understand our faith, to integrating faith and learning, and to developing their sense of what their faith demands of them and how best to meet those demands.
• Committed to providing a place that is so enriching, so fun, so supportive that students want to stay through graduation and then long to return often; a place where friends and neighbors seek to be involved regularly; a place that draws those outside our community to seek what we have because it is so clearly life-giving.
• Committed to engaging men and women at various stages in their lives, as a traditional liberal arts college, as an adult program committed to providing working men and women the opportunity to improve their lives, and as a place where our alumni, friends and neighbors can enrich their lives through life-long learning opportunities.

To do these things well, we need to be bigger—serving two to three times our present number of students. We can better serve our current students as well as serve others if we have more students, more faculty, and more programs. We can better serve our communities if we have more friends, more donors, and more opportunities to be engaged in the life of the college. We can better serve the Lord if we better equip our students and our communities in these ways.

Montreat can scarce accommodate more buildings, and so many more students. Hence, Montreat College must grow beyond the boundaries of this cove if it is to reach its potential.

Fortunately, we have a great friend and partner in Black Mountain. Our Black Mountain campus provides room to grow, to build, and to develop new programs. We must seize this opportunity and work together to make the most of it.

Montreat College is a wonderful school. We have much to be proud of, and much to draw in others to share our many blessings and opportunities.

Together we can serve the Lord, our students and the communities of which we are a part. Together we can do so better than today. Together we can build a better Montreat College.

I ask you today to, please, join with me in this important effort.

Thank you.